


hide, hide, now it's all so easy

by piggy09



Series: the unforsaken road [4]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Helena warnings, I don't know how to tag this but Helena implies that Paul wants it, Rape/Non-con Elements, Spoilers through S2E5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1656356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is blood on her fingers, and Helena swipes it on the walls. One-two-three; a family blossoms under her fingers. She stops to look at it. Breathes. One-two-three.</p>
<p>If only it could be that easy, to make a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hide, hide, now it's all so easy

**Author's Note:**

> Latest part in the series! I don't know what notes to add here, except I honestly and legitimately started crying near the end of this. It was tough going.

There is blood on her fingers, and Helena swipes it on the walls. One-two-three; a family blossoms under her fingers. She stops to look at it. Breathes. One-two-three.

If only it could be that easy, to make a family.

But Sarah leads her out of the apartment, out of Rachel’s apartment, out of Rachel Duncan’s apartment, and Helena follows. There is blood on her fingers. She licks it off, the pad of her tongue rough on her skin.

It is not as soft as Sarah’s skin, Sarah’s skin on her skin. But Sarah is no longer touching her – she leads. Helena follows.

* * *

The man opens the door with a low rattling that matches the rattling in Helena’s mind, the way she is thinking of ways out. Escape points. How easily she could break through the door, if need be.

Of course, she has always thought this way. Sarah, though. Sarah…aggravates things.

(Her wrists sting from remembered zip ties – there are matching marks on Sarah’s wrists, now. The same. The same.

Helena wants to lick the blood from Sarah’s wrists easily as she licked it from her own skin. She wants to kiss-it-better. She wants to kill that man again, the urge coiled low in her gut.

She wonders if Sarah wants, too. How much of Sarah is Sarah, and how much of her is Helena?)

This is the Fee-man Sarah spoke to, when Helena was in the dark trying to breathe around Sarah’s voice in her chest. She did not like him much as a voice; she does not like him now. But Sarah leads her to a couch and Helena sinks onto it gladly. Her feet burn in these boots. She is still covered in blood. It is too heavy, this blood; she hunches into the couch, like resting, like she could rest here. The air smells of paint and musk. Soon it will probably smell like blood.

Helena checks – she is still hollow inside. The hollowness goes away when she listens to Sarah, but it is still there. It is like a great lake lapping at her ribs. She could drown in it.

She sinks underwater into herself when the man – all styled up, hair overdone, trying to look pretty to hide something, hide from something – says _psychopath_. Underwater, her head echoes:

(she’s dead) (you psycho) (psycho) (I’ve already got a family) (psycho) (crazy bitch) (nothing to me just) (psycho)

_No_. Sarah’s skin was against Helena’s skin. Even now Sarah swings back and forth, uneasy movements, her hand fluttering between her and this bitter man, bitter pretty man, as if to strike.

_Strike_ , Helena thinks sourly. _End him_.

But also she thinks a nameless warm sound, that Sarah is defending her, that Sarah is not cutting-her-loose. Helena can defend them with weapons; Sarah can defend them with words. Yes. Good. Helena knew they were two halves to the same whole – Sarah’s hands shake on guns and words twist and warp in Helena’s mouth.

_Please_ , Sarah says, and Helena’s stomach ripples. What wouldn’t she do, if Sarah said _please_. This man is not any stronger – he says more bitter pretty words, but aims them at Helena. _Folk costume_ , he spits, all venom.

She is not hurt by these words. She has heard worse, and she can taste the fear behind them. They are flimsy words. He is afraid.

But he thinks her a menace, an animal, a joke to be paraded on a leash? He thinks her a child? Good. She has played this role before and it is easy. She will make him fear her, and pity her. He will underestimate her later.

She lets loose a little of her anger in a hiss. She thinks of tearing out his throat, and the hiss his blood would make. This is a poor (copy) version of that sound; he jumps anyways. _Weak_ weak weak. Helena could break him. She giggles into the pillow, which smells nothing like Sarah at all.

_Hey_ , Sarah says, and _don’t_.

So this man, this _Felix_ is Sarah’s brother. Sarah is wrong, here, lovely stupid Sarah. This does not make him family. Family is written in the blood on Rachel’s wall, the blood that is Helena’s and Sarah’s. Felix calls himself an artist? Ha. His blood would not make very good art at all.

But Sarah is still talking – she is beautiful, beautiful in a way Helena could never be. Helena loves her like aching. Helena loves Sarah like Sarah’s hand loves a gun: fearfully and with shame, but with understanding that it is necessary.

That splintercracks when Sarah says _meathead_ and Helena—

(I don’t want) (miracle) (to be) ( _lying unmoving just a body_ ) (your) ( _cold between her legs unmoving just a body just_ ) (sister) (meat)

—says, slowly, “Do not call me this.”

Sarah backs down and Helena loves her, wishes Sarah had not said things that made Helena not want to love her.

Not that anything could make Helena stop loving Sarah. But.

The point is this: Sarah backs down. She has respect, and Helena wants to bury her head in Sarah’s neck, breathe in the lingering blood-smell of her, push her love from her body into Sarah’s.

She does not. She listens.

“Do you understand, Helena?” Sarah says again, slowly, and: yes. Helena understands. They are supposed to be a family, HelenaSarahKira Felix. Easy.

To Sarah he is _brother_. But he is not Helena’s brother.

“He is _sestra_?” she asks Sarah, and although Felix whines Sarah says _yes_ and so it is good. She gives Helena clothes and orders with the same casual disdain, but Helena can only take meaning from one of them – the clothes, she finds, smell nothing like Sarah at all.

“Thank you, Felix,” she says delicately as she passes him, holding the words between her teeth. These gifts she thinks are from Sarah, and not him; still, if he is to be family she must be polite. Or else Sarah will be displeased. Helena does not like it, when Sarah is displeased. Because of this she will be polite.

Felix-Sarah’s-brother throws more words at her, meaningless, like shiny bubbles. Helena is learning him. She understands his need to have claws out, she thinks.

The beads part in front of her and she is alone in the bathroom.

She looks at herself in the mirror.

_Hello, Helena_ , she thinks, like this is a game of play-pretend. Maybe she will do her own voice back; maybe she will talk about herself like she is not there, the way Sarah and Felix are doing behind her, hushed tones.

“What did those fish cult freaks do to her?” Felix says.

(what happened to you, Helena)

“I don’t know,” Sarah says.

(I don’t know)

“She wouldn’t say,” Sarah says.

(silence in the alley, but for the sound of breathing)

_Hello, Helena_ , Helena thinks, meeting her own eyes and slowly stripping the dress from her skin. It smells of sweat and blood and a little bit like Sarah’s sweat and blood, which is to say: nothing like Sarah at all, and everything like Helena. _What happened to you?_

She thinks it conversationally, lightly, like she is asking this mirror-self how her day has been.

She still does not know the answer. Underneath the dress her body is all bones.

Behind her, Felix scoffs and whines and Helena thinks about killing him. But she’s too sad for it. She does not want to wear Felix’s clothing – it is not Sarah’s – but she does not want to be in just her skin (it is not Sarah’s). Loss laps at the bottom of her lungs. She finds it hard to breathe.

* * *

Felix-Sarah’s-brother – _Felix_ is careful with Helena, once Sarah tells him to be. Still he looks at her like a child, treats her like a child – he hands her a helmet, the fur of it tickling Helena’s hands, and she wants to tell him that she has ridden motorbikes far, and fast, and never fallen.

She wants to tell him that she rode so far and so fast with metal in her side, from Sarah to her, dripping Sarah’s blood on the pavement.

_Have you ever spilled Sarah’s blood?_ she would ask, leaning tooclose into him, so close he could not run. Of course he hasn’t. His blood is not Sarah’s blood.

She takes the helmet. She does not like the way it fits; she rolls it round and round in her hands and places it gently on her head. Twisted, the fur of it tickles her skin.

She does not like riding with Felix, either. Helena misses her motorbike. This is not fast enough and Felix’s breath wheezes from between his ribs.

But! They make it to the building, sturdy brick. Yes. Helena can see Detective Arthur Bell living here. He is a sturdy man.

He was very still, when he watched her—

when

he watched—

She jumps back into herself in a hallway, Felix wheeling the bike in front of her.

“Alright, best behavior, lil’… _sestra_ ,” he says, haltingly. Their definition of “best behavior” differs, probably: the best behavior for Helena is the behavior that is best for Helena.

She decides not to tell him this. Instead, she thinks about the fact that he called her _sestra_.

(Maybe someday Sarah will call Helena _sestra_. The thought makes Helena warm, like blood pumping too fast out of her skin.)

Helena thinks about calling him _brata_ , but no. He is not her brother. He is Sarah’s brother. So. Brother- _sestra_ , then. A neat label. It suits Felix, the smooth lines of his clothes, the space in her nose where the smell of Sarah should be but is not.

Oh, they’ve reached a door. _3-1-0_. Helena could draw that: Sarah and Kira and Helena. Helena alone. No Helena at all.

No time for that, and no blood: the door opens. Arthur Bell stands in the doorway. He is tall, and strong. It is a little sad how easily Helena could kill him.

“Hello again, Detective Bell,” she says politely. (She does understand others’ definitions of _best_ ; she just prefers her own.)

“Inside,” he growls. _Well_. No one has lectured _him_ on politeness, it seems. He grabs her by the shoulder _no_ too rough not Sarah nobody, nobody touches Helena. Do not touch Helena do _not_ touch. Helena.

She wishes Sarah was here. She wants Sarah to grab her and pull her inside; better still, she wants Sarah to trust that Helena can walk inside on her own. She wants Sarah to want her to walk inside on her own.

Sarah is not here. Helena shakes Arthur Bell’s arm off of hers; she removes the helmet from her head. She is losing sight of what is important. What is important is: Sarah. Kira. Yes.

“Hands on the table,” he says, and then his hands are on her arms again his _hands_ on her skin do not touch Helena! You cannot touch Helena—

(boundtogetherbeforegod)

—but he does, Arthur Bell, and he is not the sort of man to be scared off by a hiss. Unfortunately. When Helena tries to say _stop,_ when she says “I don’t like to be touched,” he says:

“Yeah, well, that’s too bad.”

Why Sarah trusts this man Helena cannot fathom. His hands are rough on her skin. He has calluses from his guns, his big guns. How solid they must seem in his hands!

Children’s toys. Her gun is bigger, but that’s not the point. Take away Arthur Bell’s gun and he is just _Arthur_. Helena is always Helena and will always be Helena. She does not need a gun to be a weapon.

She does not need a _weapon_ to be a weapon; Arthur searches her anyways. Felix tries to defend her! That is sweet. He does not do as good of a job as Sarah, though – his defense assumes she is a child again.

It is still nice. It’s like a sugar packet in Helena’s pocket, that assumption. It is a promise of a future feast. It is so easy, to be underestimated.

Arthur is smart, too. Pity. Helena wishes she’d had more time to hide a weapon – oh, she likes _having_ them, that sugar-packet promise, but she does not _need_ them. They cannot take away her arms for strangling, her hands for grabbing, her thumbs for – _well_.

Arthur is smart, and he finds the pen Helena has hidden in her boot. Pi-ty.

“That’s my pen,” Felix says, and Helena sighs at the popping of Felix’s pretty bubble thoughts, his pretty bubble words. It will take work to remake them.

Mm, she likes Felix, though. He is simple. She will invest the effort.

“I wanted to write letter,” she says, lazily. It does not matter if they believe her. Now little Felix will have _doubt_ , think _maybe_.

Helena can work with _maybe_. She has worked with less before.

Only: Arthur has not stopped touching her. His breath smells of nothing in particular (Sarah’s breath huffing against the skin of her forehead, tears and blood and blood and tears) as he hisses, “I haven’t forgot that you took a shot at me.”

Helena hasn’t either, precisely – more she remembers Sarah’s body underneath her, the warmth of it, the fear in Sarah’s eyes, the _warmth_ of her body.

She can spare a thought to Arthur Bell falling to the ground. How quickly he went! How easy it was to knock him down! Poor, brave cop. So easily defeated.

She laughs, a small hiccup of a sound. He had blood flowing from his ear, too! It was nowhere near as lovely as Sarah’s blood, Sarah’s ear. Few things are.

“Gimme your hands,” he says, and then _takes_. Helena did not give, she did not—

—“Do as he says, meathead,” says Felix, lazy and smug in his assurance that she will not kill him—

—and everything is happening fast and this one-two punch of hands and words makes Helena stumble. These hands are not Sarah, and neither are these words – she is realizing rapidly that she misses _meathead_ , wants Sarah to say it.

She wants Sarah to hold her hands. She gets handcuffs instead.

Her stomach rolls over and over and Arthur lists off all the ways she is trapped here, as if she did not _know_ , as if she had not checked for escape points already categorized every exit figured out alternatives for the missing pen and how to choke Arthur and run before he could even finish listing all the ways she could not run.

It is like a gun’s worth of bullets, words and touch and far too much, a nursery rhyme. Mary had a little sheep, its fleece was white as—

“You’re safe here,” Arthur says, far too gently considering she can still feel the pressure of his hands against her skin. She blows hair out of her face and decides not to believe him.

_Believe him_ , says Felix. Poor boy. What does he know, of policemen with their shiny badges and souls caked black with sin? What does he know of Arthur Bell, who fell once and stayed still a second time, who took three tries to catch her?

 She will put it in ways he understands.

“He lies down with pigs,” she says – simple words. All these round men with their round stomachs. Oink oink oink. Rolling in the mud while Helena dances around them, wades into their pen and snatches truffles from their mouths. _Dirty_ cops, filthy muddy pigs.

She snorts a little, for emphasis. She does not break eye contact with Arthur. This man she will keep on his toes, maybe – is she a little girl? Is she a killer? Oh, Arthur, it is so difficult to know!

“And that’s my cue to leave,” says Felix brightly. “I’ve got a hot date too.”

What an idiot. Helena does not understand how she could have thought him bitter and dangerous. If she cut his head open it would be filled with shiny things, like a bird’s nest. She watches him, strains her wrists against the cuffs and thinks of Sarah’s wrists. _Have you ever spilled Sarah’s blood?_ She could, right now. It would be easy.

“Good luck with…that,” Felix says, eyes wide behind the makeup, deliciously off-balance. In her head she waves _goodbye, Felix_ , but he is back in the door to whisper (like confession), “Oh, um…try food.”

He can try, Arthur Bell. Helena will take his food and give him exactly what she owes: nothing.

* * *

He does not try food, which is too bad. Instead he gets a large stack of papers, which rustle between his fingers. Dull! Helena waits until his attention is not on her and then slides over the fish tank, which is bright and pretty and filled with small flickers of movement.

Staring at it makes the water go down in her chest. Sarah feels like blood flowing out of her, thump-thump-thump. This, this feels like all the nurses at the hospital, soft smooth hands.

The fish are animals. They are dumb – they do not know anything at all. Helena wants them to look at her; if they look at her they would not see Helena-the-killer, Helena-who-was-married, empty Helena. All they would see is a large thing that might eat them.

Helena wouldn’t eat them. Probably. She hasn’t decided.

So she sits in front of the tank and lets nurse-hands smooth over her heart and wiggles her fingers and _does not listen_ to Arthur, Arthur who says _MaggieMaggieMaggie_.

Maggie is dead. _Dead_ Maggie is dead dead.

It’s not enough to remind herself of this. She is still off-balance when Arthur says:

“The last time I saw you, you were running away from Johanssen’s followers in a wedding dress.”

and then Helena

                             is gone. Goodbye, Helena.

You want _hands slashing dark my hands your hands pick up the knife child be the knife child run to the knife child_ to tell me _run run part of our family now I’ve already got a gun I’ve already got a gun hey hey hey run run run_ what _cold inside cold outside all cold  God empty empty run_ that was _help_ all about _help_?

What _happened to you Helena_ did _happened to you split open take take take take take take take boundtogetherbeforegod God why? why God god God god take take split legs open take_ they _dead men no mouths dead men no mouths to speak no mouths to open only eyes cold eyes dead eyes f a m i l y_ do _shackles do not touch     Helena_ to _donottouchHelena_ you _I don’t know_?

What did they do to you?

Helena slides into her skin again but it is not easy, it is not easy at all. Her heart still beats so fast it is a low continuous sound. _Have you ever been afraid, Arthur_ , she wants to ask, but he will say _yes_ and he will be lying.

Instead she stays silent, and counts her breaths, and watches the bright stupid fish. No one has ever taken anything from a fish.

Helena would like to be a fish, maybe. No. Helena likes being Helena. Helena likes eating, and moving fast, and killing, and Sarah. Sarah would not love a fish.

“How did Maggie find the clones?” Arthur asks. He is angry now; he is getting more and more stupid. Jumping from question to question like a dying man staggering. Maybe Helena will take advantage of that later, when she is not this tired and cold and afraid.

She blows hot breath, _hhh_ , onto the glass of the fishtank. She can’t be a fish, but she can at least pretend she is in that bright pretty fish world.

“How did she communicate with you?” Arthur asks, as if he is expecting an answer.

One-two-three. Look, it is Helena. Hello, Helena. What happened to you?

(Helena has to ask herself this question, now, because from what she has seen of other people it is the best thing to do. The polite thing. _Lovely weather we’re having. What happened to you, Helena?_

Felix said to be polite, yes?)

“I am a very patient man, Helena.”

This is a lie.

“So, I’ma just make me…a grilled cheese sandwich. While you think about it.”

Helena’s stomach grows claws. They took her sugar from her. She has not eaten since—

since—

a long time.

She is very, very hungry. 

Plastic rustles and Helena make-believes that she can smell the cheese, the bread, the heat of the metal coils. She thinks about killing Arthur and taking his food. She thinks about going over there, and eating.

She cannot stop looking at the food. She cannot stop looking at the food.

* * *

Helena crumbles, eventually, because otherwise Arthur will just sit there and hurl more questions at her, pew pew, like bullets in a gun. Besides, it smells nice. So she sidles over when his back is turned, makes the food vanish. Magic.

He brings her more. She feasts. A way deep down part of her, buried, says that she should pray. What good is praying? _Amen_ , she thinks meanly, hollowly, and shoves more food into her mouth.

Arthur does not care about Sarah, not really. Maybe he thinks he does. What he cares about are little coppy things, like justice and truth. Maybe he cares about Elizabeth Childs. Helena does not really care. What matters is that he is going the wrong way, through Maggie. Maggie is dead. She has nothing left to tell him.

She is already leading Felix. She will lead Arthur too.

The food covers the table, covers Maggie’s face. _Poor Maggie_ , Helena thinks with no sincerity. She was stupid, and now she is dead and Helena feasts.

“When I was seven,” she tells Arthur Bell (she doubts he cares, but she does not care about Maggie, so they are even), “the nuns said I had devils inside me.”

She swipes mustard onto her finger and licks it off – not as good as blood, not really, but it will do.

She watches Arthur sway from foot to foot, watches him watch her. Helena wonders where he thinks she is going, with this story. _Boo-hoo, Detective, I was so lonely and afraid. Will you take care of me?_

“Sister Olga locked me in cellar,” she tells him conversationally, shoving more food into her mouth. If it was up to Helena she would push food into her mouth unceasingly until she vomited, but – best-be-hav-ior. Look, Felix. Look, Arthur. See how nice I am.

Take the handcuffs off.

“She gave me darkness,” she says, shrugging. “But…”

She meets Arthur’s eyes, glittering with interest.

“I gave her darkness,” Helena says. _Pop_ go her thumbs (her thumbs for _killing_ ) and _pop_ goes the interest in Arthur’s eyes. Poor man.

She doesn’t mean that either.

But that is one wobbling step in the right direction; she has begun to steer him, gently, the right way.

“Does Sarah know of Swan Man?” she asks Arthur, narrowed eyes, listening to his footsteps walk, pause, walk back.

“I don’t think so,” he breathes. He is wriggling on her hook, like a little fish. You can learn a lot about people by what animals they keep around, Helena thinks.

“Swan Man played God,” she tells him. Crunch crunch crunch go Helena’s teeth, breaking up the food. Arthur’s breathing goes fast.

“How’d he do that,” he asks her, soft and intense. Now. Reel him in through what he thinks he cares about slow, slow, slow.

“He’s in her locker,” Helena says.

“Whose locker?” Arthur asks. He pauses. The line goes taut. “Maggie’s?”

“Why does Rachel want Sarah?” Helena asks, because she has Arthur now and so they have switched sides. (Sarah stood over Helena – _meathead_ – Helena stood over Sarah – _sestra_. Then Sarah shot Helena down and they were the same.)

Arthur hunkers down so he is at her level, swaying like a snake, _hiss_. “Is it for Kira too?” she asks him, knowing he does not know the answer or care. Still: _she_ cares. She wants to know. Is Rachel a danger? Will Helena have to kill her? How quickly?

“Does Maggie Chen have a locker?” Arthur asks, wrong wrong wrong. He still doesn’t care about the right things!

“How does this help my _sestra_?” Helena fires back, jangling her chains. Remember, Arthur, remember Sarah, remember Sarah who matters. Maggie is dead and does not matter, let me _go_ so I can help my sister.

“Listen, Helena,” Arthur says urgently, taking a seat and lowering himself further – closer to the ground, the mud where he belongs. Oink oink. “This is _really_ important.”

That’s not true at all. Stupid silly man. Sarah would have figured this out _ages_ ago. Helena misses her. She is starting to be bitter that Sarah has dumped her here, like (meat) cargo.

Anger rises in her chest, that old urge to hurt. Also: she misses Sarah. She will try Sarah’s weapons, words and lying, since her own are chained together.

“I want to tell you something,” she says, nodding and serious. I am playing along. I am willing to help. She licks mustard off her finger and dreams it blood.

“Yeah,” says Arthur, soft as a snake in the grass but not nearly as deadly. Or smart.

“These I like,” Helena says gently, and eats a donut. Sugar slides between her teeth, good as anything Helena has ever known.

Helena looks the policeman in the eye, and licks donut-sugar from her lips. She hopes he gets the joke.

But he doesn’t; he’s up, moving, looking at her with something like betrayal when the phone rings. Helena thinks _Sarah_ with a sudden, trilling urgency; in cuffs like this she could do nothing, though, _nothing_ , and so she leans back in her chair and pretends that she is sleepy. Like an animal, she eats and sleeps and dies.

Arthur answers the phone and Helena can _feel_ Sarah. Her heart lurches to life: it says _go_.

_Patience_ , Helena thinks. Art says _Sarah, Sarah_ and Helena wants to laugh, wants to say _I know_. She watches him instead. Breathes. Waits. Patience.

(He takes the food. This isn’t exactly pleasing. Adrenaline, already coiling in Helena’s stomach, begins to snap and bite in the same way as hunger.)

He mentions the other police and then he says _Rachel_.

Helena’s anger goes very still. Sarah is in trouble. This is because of Rachel.

Rachel, it seems, is growing to be a problem.

How they expect Helena to fix problems from here, in handcuffs, how they expect Helena to do _anything_ except sit and eat and be the child they expect her to be is beyond her. Her anger is alive again; her panic empty panic has vanished. She is calm.

Now, now she has a _mission_.

Her eye falls on the can of tuna and quietly, quickly she snaps the lid off and begins to work the cuffs. It’s easy. Arthur spits reassurances at Sarah – doesn’t he know that Sarah needs actions, to be complete? Doesn’t he know _anything_ about Helena’s sister?

Obviously he knows nothing about either of them, because when he turns he is surprised to find Helena gone.

Like she said: sad. It is just a few twisting movements to get him on the counter, get his gun against his head.

“Easy, easy,” he hisses, and Helena thinks: _I know_.

* * *

And it is. Easy. Helena was made for this, like a plant trained to a trellis. She hums as she makes the fortune teller, easy folds, one-two-three.

Arthur yanks on the cuffs, pleads, begs, argues. She looks at him. She looks back down. Riddles form in her brain quickly, like pigeons waiting for their necks to be snapped. She picks only the best ones, only the best for Sarah.

Because Sarah is coming! Sarah will see that she has taken care of Rachel and Sarah will understand that Helena can be trusted. She grabs Felix’s coat and a last donut, stuffs the donut in her mouth, and turns to go.

She leaves the door open for her sister. Sarah should always have a way in to where she needs to go; this is especially true when where she needs to go is after Helena.

Sarah led before, after all. Now it is her turn to follow. Helena will lead her well.

She is already working on that lead, licking sugar from the corners of her mouth and from her fingers and moving fast, with purpose. What sort of game would this be, if Sarah catches her? What sort of sister would she be, if she did not give Sarah time to follow?

The answer to both is: a bad one. Helena’s mind whirrs and she thinks about Sarah, Sarah needing Helena to help her, Sarah not knowing she needs Helena. Helena’s body moves automatically. This is a familiar walk. She has made it enough times, before.

And here she is, Helena and Helena’s body, Helena and Sarah’s blood, Helena who is Sarah and Helena both. Here she is at Maggie’s door, and Maggie is rotting in the ground.

Helena opens the door with a low rattling, but her mind is very still.

This is what she was made to do; it comes so easy. Her blood sings a long angry joyous note. The air in the locker smells like dust and sweat, human stink and the long absence of humans. Her bike is here. Everything she needs is here.

In the dark, Helena smiles.

Then she lets the door _bang_ closed, slides into the back of the locker. She is slow to see, in the dark, but once she can see she sees truly. (Light.) She draws herself and Kira on the wall, to keep her company while she rummages. Helena’s family can bloom anywhere, as long as she has ink or charcoal or blood. That is the strength of family.

Next Helena turns (she feels safer now that Kira is at her back) and rummages through the dolls carelessly, plastic heads clanging to the floor like headshots, _boom_ , before grabbing what she needs.

Why hello there, dolly. Hello there, Dolly.

(Like sheep, see? Baa.)

Helena does not name her yet. Instead she twists the head of the doll with the sad absence of cracking bone, fumbles for the scissors and dances over to the table, blowing a kiss to Sister Agnes as she goes. What a vile, nasty woman.

_Snip snip snip_ go the scissors, and now the doll is _Rachel_. The transition is so easy, and quick! She leaves Rachel’s body propped against the candlesticks – let her blasphemous body rot, Helena prefers clean headshots anyways – and grabs wire, grabs binoculars,  grabs the lipstick Helena is not supposed to know about. (Not that it matters, now.)

She slings the binoculars around her neck and stuffs the rest of these things into the pockets of her coat, where they clink together. Then she reaches for her gun. Hello, gun. She does not blow it a kiss; she would _never_ disrespect her gun.

Oh! One more thing.

She digs out the photographs, Swan Man, and leaves them for Sarah to find. Clever Sarah only needs a _little_ bitty hint.

Then she gets on her bike, and goes.

* * *

The city streams by, all back alleys, and Helena follows her own footsteps (and Sarah’s footsteps) back to Rachel’s apartment. Hmm. Helena will need to be far away, and very high.

She will find a building. She always does. Easy. For now, she lets herself feel the wind in her hair and the wind inside of her, that cool thing that says _purpose_.

_There_. Building. Unceremoniously, Helena dumps her bike in the street. Hello, _sestra_. I have left a gift for you. Do you like?

She hopes that Sarah likes it, but she doesn’t spare much thought; the wire is in her hand and she is picking the lock. In she goes and up the stairs, up and up and up.

Her gun thumps against her back with each step, like a second heart. It’s like Sarah is there with her, climbing the stairs, saying _you’re doing so good, Helena, just a little farther._

_Anything for you, sestra,_ she thinks, _anything for_ us.

The room is empty and aching with dust. Helena tramps through it, hands in her pockets, the weight of her tools solid in her palms. She assembles herself a nest. The screeching of furniture on the ground is loud; it’s a good thing Helena isn’t afraid of anyone coming. Not with her gun like a second heart.

With a small huff of effort she lands in the chair, gun close enough to reach. A cloud of dust flies into the air; Helena’s nose wrinkles with the urge to sneeze but – like many urges – she has abandoned this one a long, long time ago. Instead she fishes Rachel out of her pocket and without ceremony shoves the wire into her neck.

There. She’s so pretty. Well, almost – Helena retrieves the scissors, sets to work at making Rachel prettier. (She could never be beautiful. Only Sarah is beautiful.)

She hums to herself as she works, old tattered fragments of songs. The sound echoes in the quiet. It is _too_ quiet. Helena could use company.

“A little more off the back, Helena,” she tells herself. Or maybe Rachel says it! Very clever, that Rachel.

“Yes, Rachel, of _course_ ,” she murmurs back. In her head she thinks: how fast will Sarah figure it out, from the locker? How much time does she have? Out loud she says, “So pretty you are. So much money.”

(Only pretty.)

She takes great care in snipping Rachel’s hair. Helena has always been good with things that require skill and delicacy, like sniping and trying to love Sarah. These things are easy.

“So much money,” she whispers again, because what else does Rachel have? Not a family. _Poor_ Rachel.

Or not poor at all, really.

There! Done. She rests Rachel on the table and picks up the binoculars from where they’ve been swinging around her neck. They are warm from the heat of her.

Oh. Hello, Paul. You have left Sarah for pretty shiny Rachel.

He should not leave Sarah _ever_. No one should leave Sarah, no one should kiss Sarah and turn and kiss a copy with the same lips. Disgusting, wrong, sin.

But Paul is not important. Helena moves her binoculars a little bit and _there_ is Rachel, putting on her lipstick. Good! Helena knew it was a good idea to bring the lipstick, knew it with a certainty like rightness. It wouldn’t do for Rachel to be unornamented, after all. That would not do.

She pulls out the lipstick triumphantly, dabs it on Rachel’s lips. _Very_ pretty. Very nice. Helena wonders if her lips taste like blood, Rachel’s lips.

Carefully Helena smoothes the lipstick on her own lips. This she learned from watching Maggie, when Maggie thought she was not looking; she was punished, later, but now Helena is pretty and Maggie is dead.

Helena is pretty now, too. She is pretty enough to kill pretty Rachel. She looks at Rachel. They are nothing, nothing alike.

She kisses Rachel anyways. Mwah.

Soon Rachel will be dead; the doll of her tastes nothing at all like blood. Helena is suddenly bored with it.

She reaches for the binoculars, instead; oh, look, Paul has taken off his shirt. Helena spares a second to think about the last time she talked to Paul, when Sarah said she needed Helena. And Helena _saved_ her, Helena saved her because of Paul.

This does not mean she likes Paul. She likes him even less, now, as Rachel trails her hands all over him, tiny in the lenses of Helena’s binoculars. Doesn’t he know such a thing means _owning?_ Rachel owns Paul, now, and Helena does not like Rachel and so she does not like Paul, Paul who now belongs to Rachel.

She removes the binoculars and her heart begins to drum. Soon. Soon. Soon.

Assembling the gun is easy, easy as Helena’s blood flowing through Helena’s veins and just as automatic. Click click click. Her fingers are still; she is a machine, now, heading towards an ending that is permanent and inescapable.

It seems like it has always been easy – this is not true. When Helena was younger she was not yet a machine; she was still a little girl. Her fingers shook.

This is not the case anymore.

One small, sentimental thing: she ties Rachel onto the gun. Rachel kills Rachel – this is true in the larger picture, too, because Helena would not be lunging for Rachel if Rachel had not moved for Sarah first. She is her own demise.

Helena’s just helping.

She lines up the sights. At this point she is one trigger pull away from the finale.

Best to wait. Sarah has not arrived yet. Helena can feel her, though, like a bullet whistling closer ever closer. She can give Sarah time.

Through the sniper scope Paul collapses in the chair. Already he is a body! He and Rachel make a good pair. Yes, Helena thinks idly, you can learn a lot about people by what animals they keep around.

What is she learning about Rachel, before Rachel dies? Rachel is _vain_ , her lipstick, the clothes she wears even though poor Paul has nothing. Helena puts vain pretty words into her vain pretty mouth: “Do you like my hair, Paul?” she makes Rachel ask. She asks as Rachel. Rachel asks. Does it matter? Not really. Rachel will be stupid and vain no matter what Helena says.

Tiny Rachel moves closer to tiny Paul; she is disgusting, filthy, an animal. Both of them are animals.

Paul _likes_ it, though, the dirty man. Helena wonders if he likes feeling all small and useless. Like a child.

“Yah,” she purrs, “very pretty, dirty sexy Rachel. Like my mother.”

The last part she spits. Helena has no business with mothers. Of course Paul would be the sort of person to like mothers; she knew she did not like Paul. She would not like anyone who hurts Sarah, anyways.

Footsteps! The smell of fear! Protect Sarah and Sarah will appear, apparently, and happiness leaps in Helena’s chest although she cannot show it. She is _concentrating,_ and besides Sarah abandoned her with Arthur and Felix.

Helena came for Sarah. Helena always comes for Sarah, and always it is Sarah that leaves. Why is this?

But now it is _Sarah_ who has come, because deep down Sarah understands.

Or possibly she is here to make sure Helena does not kill Rachel. Whichever. What matters is that Sarah is here.

“Hello, _sestra_ ,” she calls calmly. Helena is working right now, Sarah. Helena is busy.

“Helena, stop,” Sarah says urgently. Ah, so she is here to stop her sister. A low pang of disappointment tolls under Helena’s skin. Again Helena has misunderstood. Again Sarah too has misunderstood. They keep missing each other.

“Helena, put the gun down,” Arthur – oh, no, Detective Arthur Bell says. He is holding a gun. He is no longer Arthur. Sad.

Sad, too, that Sarah decided to bring him along. She did not _need_ him. Stupid detective; what does he know of family?

“Mind your weapon, Art,” she calls – at work Arthur Bell is _Art_ , and so he was to Detective Childs – “or I pull trigger.”

Would she? Maybe. Maybe not. Sarah is upset with her, but: Sarah would be more upset if this Rachel hurts her or her family. Best to take care of this now, yes? Better for Sarah to be mad at her – better for Sarah to hate her – than for Sarah to. Well. Not be able to hate her.

Maybe she can make Sarah understand.

“Come see, Sarah,” she calls, because once Sarah sees Rachel and Paul rutting like animals she will be able to see the full picture. Then Sarah will know what to do.

“Okay,” Sarah says, afraid. Nobody wears fear like Sarah. Nobody, nobody is as beautiful.

Her footsteps are harsh on the floor, flat slapping sounds like Helena’s heartbeat. Sarah stops to her side; Helena looks at her sideways, keeping her focus on the two filthy targets in her scope.

“Helena,” Sarah says, afraid afraid afraid, “you can’t do this. You can’t.”

So now the choice is cemented. Protect Sarah for Sarah’s own good or step down and refuse to keep Sarah safe, but – be loved.

Or maybe there is still a chance? Maybe, maybe Sarah still cannot see, why it is Helena would do this.

“Rachel is problem,” Helena tells her, watching Rachel bounce, meaningless, up and down, “I fix problem.”

It really is a lot simpler than Sarah is making it, isn’t it?

“I wish you could,” Sarah says, and love blooms in Helena’s chest like rot on a body. Sarah _does_ understand, so that’s alright. There is just something in the way, but: Sarah would be there, Sarah would let her pull the trigger, maybe Sarah would put her hand over the trigger and pull it _with_ her (Helena shivers, deep underneath her skin) – but.

“…but they’ve got Felix,” Sarah says, Sarah shakes.

Oh. Family.

Sarah is always moved by family, isn’t she? Rachel is a clever little minx, to move for Sarah’s brother, Helena’s sister’s brother.

Helena wants her dead very badly, clever Rachel. It is too bad that the same thing that is making her angry is the thing keeping her from pulling the trigger.

“Brother- _sestra,_ ” she says carefully. _Your brother, not mine_.

“He’s in jail,” Sarah pleads, Sarah whispers, Sarah spits in small chunks of information, small enough for Helena to roll in her mouth and swallow. “If you kill Rachel, they’re gonna keep him there.”

Mm, Helena wants to pull the trigger. Goodbye Rachel. Goodbye Felix. HelenaSarahKira. That easy, to make a family. One little twitch.

Instead she says: “Look.” Instead she prods the binoculars towards Sarah with her toe. Sarah picks them up; Helena’s eyes droop as she considers that the binoculars may be warm from her own hands.

“Look, Sarah,” she says. She is looking too. The same.

“Okay,” Sarah says. Helena can see the moment Sarah realizes what is happening; she can see it in the twitch of Sarah’s fingers, hear it in her breath.

Despite this, she does not think Sarah is willing to let her pull the trigger. Helena would do it for her! Sarah could leave, even, and Helena would do it all alone, and Sarah could pretend she knows nothing. Helena would do it, because Rachel is cruel and Paul, well—

“Paul is unfaithful,” she reminds Sarah.

“I don’t care about Paul,” Sarah lies. Her voice _shakes_.

Helena makes a kissing sound. _Mwah_. She could have kissed a bullet, if she had known – that way, Paul could have kissed two sisters and a copy. Lucky, lucky Paul.

“He doesn’t matter anymore,” says Sarah, coming closer. Unlucky Paul, then, to not matter to Sarah.

“Then I kill him for you,” Helena offers, twitching the gun just a little bit, just a hair, just enough—

—“No, Helena, _stop_ ,” Sarah says, voice growling, voice _desperate_ —

—“Take your finger off the trigger and put down the gun,” Arthur Bell says—

—“No, just—” Sarah says (everything is sharp glittershards now, words and actions, Helena’s finger smooth on the trigger, everything is happening fast and she wants to listen to Sarah not Arthur Bell but she does not want to listen to Sarah because she wants to help Sarah but _Sarah_ Sarah Sarah)—

“Pull, Art, see who’s faster,” Helena barks, because she knows the answer.

“ _Please_ ,” Sarah says.

(Art-Arthur Bell says something else, but Helena is no longer listening.)

Sarah steps in front of her gun. She is looking at Helena. Again she is looking at Helena. She says, “Helena, listen to me,” as if Helena would ever do anything else.

“There’s another way,” Sarah says. “We can make a deal for Felix, but I _need_ your help.”

“Only you can help me find Swan Man,” she says, deadly serious. Serious as death. Serious about a lack of death.

But that can’t be right, can it? Sarah uses words like Helena uses weapons. Why is Sarah pulling the bullets out of her gun, showing them to Helena? Why is she playing at honesty?

She is being so honest that she must be lying. She is lying the way Tomas lied, all pretty words, all always what Helena wanted to hear. It was when Helena wanted to hear things most, that Tomas lied.

Helena thinks of animals, and leashes. You can learn a lot about people by what animals they keep around. The hands on the leashes on the animal that is Helena – well. They want to lead, and they want Helena to follow. They want Helena to kill, but only the right people.

“You only want to use me,” Helena says sadly, because it might be true.

(She is uncertain. She does not want it to be true.)

“No,” Sarah breathes, moving closer to Helena. Her hands are splayed. Helena wants to hold them _so badly_ ; she does not let go of the gun. “That’s not true.”

It’s like Sarah can read her mind. Connection. Still, still, always connection. Slowly, Helena looks up from the sniper scope. She looks Sarah in the eye.

“You saved my life.” Sarah whispers, “You’re my sister.”

This is – too honest. This is a stripped wire, this is a naked blade. This hurts Helena desperately, because it is too true, it is – it is too much what she has wanted, it must be a lie, it can’t be real, it is too true to be true. It is too easy.

(Helena saved her _life_.

Helena is her _sister_.

No, no, no, too true. It is too beautiful. It is all that Helena has ever wanted, for Sarah to call her _sister_.)

“Helena, I thought – I thought I killed you,” Sarah whispers, like confession. “I couldn’t tell anybody what I lost.”

She’s crying. No, no, no no no no no. Helena – Helena – Helena is crying too, isn’t she, because Sarah’s tears do not lie. Sarah washed Helena clean with them. Sarah’s tears are beautiful and Helena is crying because Sarah has called her _sister_ , without Helena Sarah was an aching hole of loss.

Helena is loss, too. Oh Sarah. Oh Sarah do not cry. Helena is here, Helena loves Sarah more than anything, Sarah does not need to cry.

“But you came back,” Sarah says, sniffles, weeps. “Please, Helena, put – put down the gun.”

“ _Please_ ,” Sarah says to Helena.

Helena’s mouth parts – she does not know what she wants to say. Maybe she wants to tell Sarah that she will always come back, because it is true. Maybe she wants to sob, too. Maybe she wants Sarah to know that she would do anything, _anything_ , if Sarah said _please_.

She says none of these things, because her throat is choked with love. Love is Helena’s fingers around Helena’s throat. Love is blinding Helena’s eyes.

Love makes her weak. She loves anyways.

She lowers the gun.

“That’s good,” Sarah says, and all Helena ever wanted was for someone to tell her she was good, that she was doing good. All she has ever wanted in this world was to be good.

She can’t say that either. She can’t look away from Sarah. Sarah’s eyes are like a lifeline, an embrace; Sarah’s eyes shine with tears, a mirror to Helena’s own, a _mirror_.

Helena puts down the gun gently on the ground.

“Come down,” Sarah says, and offers her hand.

Helena takes her hand and, like an angel, falls.

Sarah’s hand is beautifully, impossibly warm in Helena’s own. It is uncalloused. Sarah’s fingers wrapped around Helena’s own are impossible to describe. Words are not enough for the feeling. They are so beautiful that Helena wants to rip a man apart.

Sarah laces her fingers with Helena’s own, oh. Sarah has brought them together, and she says “Thank you” like it was Helena who has done good.

“You make me cry, _sestra_ ,” Helena chokes, because Sarah does not understand what she has done, all this good. Helena can feel Sarah’s heartbeat, tiny and delicate, against the skin of her hand. Their hands slide with Sarah’s sweat. She loves her like dying. It is exactly like dying.

Sarah laughs, choked with snot, and sways in closer to Helena. They have their own gravity, the two of them.

“Come on, meathead,” Sarah whispers, and Helena remembers that she did not like _meathead_. Right now she can’t remember why, only that it is beautiful. Sarah is beautiful and the two of them, they are family.

“Don’t call me this,” she mutters automatically, because Sarah is expecting it and because she is dazed, suddenly, by the weight of Sarah’s arm across her shoulders. Sarah’s skin burns against Helena’s skin, the joy of it searing trails like new wings all along Helena’s veins. She is burning alive from love and joy and pain and Sarah, who is all of these things.

Sarah touches her, for the first time. Her arm is heavy with promise around Helena’s shoulders and Helena carefully, nonchalantly leans her head against Sarah.

Sarah leans hers back. Sarah rubs her hand back and forth across Helena’s shoulder, sending her nerves sparking, bringing all of Helena alive. All of Helena is singing love. She loves Sarah.

Maybe, maybe Sarah loves her too.

It is almost too much to hope, when Helena has already gotten this. She wraps that hope up and places it in her pocket, for later. For now this is enough. More than enough.

* * *

Sarah stays wrapped around Helena until they reach a truck. Here she helps Helena inside, makes sure she’s fastened her seatbelt, drives. She says something Helena cannot hear – all of her is still in her skin, still neatly preserving Sarah’s touch.

“Stay here,” she says, and leaves Helena in the truck. Helena stays, because Sarah needs her. Sarah said, and Sarah wept, and Sarah told the truth.

She finally rids herself of her boots and stretches out. It is nice. This is more room than she is used to.

(If Sarah needed her, wherever she is, Helena would be there in heartbeats. Very few heartbeats. She still needs to kill someone; it itches under her skin. She is patient, though. She can wait.)

Then Sarah is back in the truck, which is even _more_ nice, even though she is now not crying-Sarah. She is angry snapping Sarah, who Helena loves.

“Right, so, how do we find Swan Man?” Sarah asks. She has not learned patience! Helena can teach her. Helena has waited in this truck a long time.

“Mrs. S has nice truck,” she says innocently, wiggling her feet. “Much leg rooms.”

Unsaid: you can wait until I tell you. Learn to wait. Helena was raised on sniper rifles; she does not know how Sarah was raised, but they are sisters and can learn to share Helena’s patience. She like the idea of sharing with Sarah, of sitting very still for a long time with Sarah and listening to her breathe. Yes. Helena can share with her sister.

Sarah does not want to share, though; instead she runs her hand across her face and says, “Helena, where are we going?”

A lesson for another time, then. Alright.

“Cold River,” Helena tells her sister. The words are like rocks in her mouth.

“What’s that? A town?” Sarah asks.

“A place of screams,” Helena whispers. Her voice is heavy with fear.

But she is not afraid for herself; she has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and feared no evil. Sarah, though. She does not want Sarah to be hurt.

Helena will protect her, then: this is a promise to herself. She will be the gun and the knife and everything Sarah does not have to be.

Helena will keep her sister safe. Sarah will keep her sister sane. Yes. This is a good promise and a true one, and Helena has always loved things that are true.

Sarah starts the car; the engine roars to life like an animal, and Helena smiles.

Helena is an animal too. She knows how to use her claws.

**Author's Note:**

> You better run, you better run so  
> Hide, hide, I have burned your bridges  
> I will be a gun  
> And it's you I'll come for  
> Hide, hide, now it's all so easy  
> I will be a gun, and it's you I'll come for  
> \--"Gun," CHVRCHES
> 
> Love me, love my constant repetition of "easy" in this fic. Love me, leave kudos, leave comments. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
